Getting Her Ears Pierced

Rachel has asked several times over the last six or so months about getting her ears pierced.  Apparently she is the only girl in her class without them, not that had anything to do with our decision to let her get them pierced, but it of course was a big deal to her. 

Didn't realize we had to pull the hair up and the one time I am without a hair tie.  Another $5.00 spent.  She was waiting so patiently.

Getting the first one done!  Looks a little nervous.

Yup that hurt a bit, but no tears not even an ouch.

Getting the second one done.

All proud and looking all grown up!

Rachel's Birthday Party!

Day two of our crazy weekend, we had Rachel's pool party at the YMCA.  Here are some pics.

All the kids had a blast, Rachel loved having her first friend birthday party!

We Interupt These Posts.....

Very important announcement!  Allen got me these for Mother's Day.

Yes they are Coach and yes they are very cute!

He did good didn't he?

Alex's Birthday Party

We recently gathered about 12 of Alex's friends for a mini-golf and ice cream birthday party at Victorian Park in Salem.  They all had a blast and best of all it wasn't at our house.

Knocking one in

the hole

All the ladies that attended

The boys!

Psyched to have his friends at the party

Opening presents

Overall it was a great day.  The weather was good and the kids had a blast!

Kung Fu Care Bear & the Dancing Skeleton

It's funny so I had to share.

Top 5 Disney!

In no particular order, here are Rachel's Top 5 things from Disney!

Toy Story Mania
Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin
Test Track
Meeting Mickey Mouse
Goofy's Barnstormer

In no particular order, here are Alex's

Toy Story Mania
Meeting the HMIC (those are his words)
Test Track
Big Thunder Mountain
Kim Possible Missions

Here are Allen's

Toy Story Mania
Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin
Rock n Roll Roller Coaster
La Nouba
Soarin'

And mine

Soarin'
La Nouba
Mickey's Philharmagic
Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin
Toy Story Mania

Day 10, heading home

Once at the airport we hung out, with Rachel sleeping in her stroller and Alex sleeping onthe floor.  The plan was to keep quiet and pray no one asked about the kids.  We knew if they found out they had the stomach bug they wouldn't let us on the plane.  Minus one episode of throwing up into a bag we were good and no one suspected a thing.  Whew!

It was a great flight and we got some early.  I love flying Southwest!  After picking up the car at Bob & Gails' we got home to do a mountain of laundry and let the kids recuperate.  Can you beleive I didn't take one picture that day?  Must have been the exhaustion.

Overall it was a fantasic vacation.  Eveyrone had a blast and we can not wait to go back.

Day 9...

Rachel was such a trooper, and even though she was still feeling crappy she got up early and headed out to Hollywood Studios with us.  Being that we had missed the previous sit down breakfast and reservations from the previous night we had a ton of dining credits left, and a bunch of quick service credits.  I was able to snag us a lunch reservation at Sci Fi Diner for lunch and we already had dinner reservations for that night at Teppan Edo in Epcot.  We made the rounds at HS hitting rides and catching the Indiana Jones SHow before Rachel had enough and wanted to go back and get some sleep.

I love this display in Hollywood Studios

Alex learning how to pose with a Power Ranger

Meeting Sully & Mike

Hey look he got it to rain

Outside Star Tours

Rogger Rabbit, my favorite!

At Sci Fi.  Alex loved all the old movie clips.

After naps we headed back out to Epcot.  We wanted to be able to get in a Kim Possible Mission for Alex before we went home the next day.  We got of Kimmunicator with a mission at the UK and headed over to Japan to have dinner.

Alex at Teppan Edo.  The food and service were good. We're spoiled because we have Yokahama's so it wasn't that big of a deal but it was fun and the food was good.

Being such a trooper!

After dinner we walked outside to torrential rain, thunder and lightning.  Oh boy fun.  We, of course, left our raincoats at the hotel.  Rachel had already crawled up inside the stroller to go back to sleep so we bought four new ponchos, one big enough to go over the stroller and headed over to the UK to do our Kim Possible mission.  After completeing that we headed over to the Land to use up our remaining snack credits for airplane snacks and went back to the hotel.  Magical Express was scheduled to pick us up at 5 am so we needed to get up around 3:30 or so.  Fun stuff

This wouldn't have been too bad, had Alex not sat up in bed around 11 pm, just as we finished packing and we going to sleep, and threw up all over the bed.  Hello Housekeeping?  Once again they were great and helped us, and brought extras this time.  We were up with him most of the night and headed out around 4:40 to catch Magical Express to the airport.

Day 8

I spent much of the evening up with Rachel, of course no one really got much sleep, with the exception of Alex who slept through everything.  We had 8:05 breakfast reservations for the Stitch and friends breakfast at Ohana.  I was really looking forward to this, but knew it wasn't going to happen.  Allen brought Alex over so at least they could enjoy it while Rachel and I got some much needed sleep.

Rachel finally woke around 9 am feeling better.  The guys were at the Magic Kingdom so we decided to head over and meet up with them.  Literally as we turned the corner into the parking area Rachel started to complain about not feeling good.  She tried to be a trooper and we went on Buzz Lightyear.  She wanted to try eating something, so we all headed over to Main St. Bakery for a bite to eat.  Shortly after she christened Main St. with her breakfast.

Allen brought her back to the hotel to rest while Alex and I explored a bit.  It didn't feel right having 1/2 the family back at the hotel so after a couple of rides and an ice cream Alex and I headed back to the resort too, where Allen and Alex went for a swim.

The only picture I took of the Castle all week, and it stinks.  Oh well, another reason to go back.

Even though she didn't feel good she still loved Buzz Lightyear.

Alex being goofy with Zurg

Big Thunder Mountain baby!

I love all the big bundles of balloons!

We had a quiet remainder of the day, with Allen grabbing take out dinner from the food court for us.  He met up with his college friends and the kids and I hung out and watched a bunch of TV and went to bed early, praying that she would be better on Sunday.

Day 7....and it all went to h e double hockey sticks.

So all was well when we left the Animal Kingdom, we were all a bit tired and hot but figured some AC and showers would get us moving again.  Time was short so we barely sat down before we headed out to Chef Mickey's for Alex's birthday dinner. 

High Fiving the birthday boy

Posing with the kids

Acting "Goofy"!

Meeting Minnie

Donald was at our table for literally 14 seconds.  I'm surprised I even got a picture.

Meeting the big guy himself

Notice how the ice cream is gone, but theres a big old plate of broccoli still sitting there.

Scratching Pluto behind those big old ears

That guy behind Pluto reminded us of Unlce Doug

Yup just what he needs, another cupcake

So we left Chef Mickey's and headed over to Epcot.  Alex wanted to do another Kim Possible mission for his birthday.  Unfortunately we were a little late and had missed the cut off time for missions.  No problem, it's EMH at Epcot so they are open late so we'll visit come countries.  Just as we head around to Norway Rachel starts complaining of a major headache.  Within 2 minutes she's crying and holding her head.  We make the decision to head back to the resort.  By the time we get to the park exit she's complaining her stomach hurts and she feels sick.  We're praying she makes it back to the resort.  She didn't.  I still feel bad for the guy sitting next to us who got nailed by vomit.  He was a good sport about it.  Can't say I would have been.

This unfortunate situation continued throughout the evening.  Housekeeping was called during the night for fresh sheets etc.  Everyone was great, trying to be helpful and accomodating considering what was going on.  We were praying it was just something quick or maybe food that didn't agree with her.  We were soon to find out it wasn't.

The Safari and more

Check out the horns on this guy

We ended up getting delayed because this guy felt the need to wander down the road

There were just a bunch of elephants wandering around.

So apparently I'm still going to have photo issues and I can't get it to behave.

Back on the safari we saw, lions & tigers and bears oh my!  Not realy but we did see lions.

Then this guy wandered down the road, met up with another Ostrich and they just stood there, for quite a while.  Then one wandered back towards us and the other took it's sweet old time moving along.  Right next to this whole ordeal they were feeding the lions.  It was a little nerve racking.

Though Alex did love seeing Stretch up close and personal.

some endangered white rhinos

Following the safari we grabbed Fast Passes for the Kali River Rapids and grabbed some lunch at Yak & Yeti.  Rachel had a mid sized melt down, should have realized it was a preview of the evening to come.  it was crazy hot out, we were all getting a lilttle short tempered so after Kali we headed out of the park.

We did stop to play some drums on the way out.

She's getting some of that temper tantrum out on the percussion instruments.

Once back at the hotel we chilled in the AC before heading out for Alex's birthday dinner at Chef Mickey's and a night at Epcot.